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Global warming and rising seas will threaten China’s south: report
Original: Sea to ‘engulf Guangdong’ by 2050
Qiu Quanlin, China Daily
GUANGZHOU: The sea level along the coast of South China’s Guangdong Province is forecast to rise by at least 30 cm by 2050, a weather report has said.
Released by the Guangdong provincial weather authority, the report also forecast that some 1,153 sq km of coastal land in the Pearl River Delta (PRD) area will be engulfed by the middle of the century, with Guangzhou, Zhuhai and Foshan worst affected.
The PRD area, a leading manufacturing hub will be hard hit by climate change in the coming decades, Du Raodong, a weather expert with the Guangdong provincial weather center, said.
“Climate change will negatively affect the economic development of Guangdong, which is currently one of the biggest consumers of energy and producers of greenhouse gases,” Du told China Daily yesterday.
The rising sea level will lead to a salt tide, which will pose a huge threat to the drinking water supply in the PRD, he said.
“Moreover, more red tides (caused by high concentrations of algae) will occur along coastal areas, affecting agricultural production,” Du said.
According to the report, the temperature in the PRD region has risen by an average of 0.3 C per decade over the past 50 years, higher than the national level of 0.21 C.
It also predicts the temperature in Guangdong will rise by 2.8 C by 2100.
(30 August 2007)
Climate flooding risk ‘misjudged’
BBC
Climate change may carry a higher risk of flooding than was previously thought, the journal Nature reports.
Researchers say efforts to calculate flooding risk from climate change do not take into account the effect carbon dioxide (CO2) has on vegetation.
Higher atmospheric levels of this greenhouse gas reduce the ability of plants to suck water out of the ground and “breathe” out the excess.
Plants expel excess water through tiny pores, or stomata, in their leaves.
Their reduced ability to release water back into the atmosphere will result in the ground becoming saturated.
Areas with higher predicted rainfall have a greater risk of flooding. But this effect also reduces the severity of droughts.
The findings suggest computer models of future climate change may need to be revised in order to plan for coming decades.
(30 August 2007)
Also at Common Dreams.
Climate change impact worsening, Ireland getting wetter: report
AFP
Climate change is affecting Ireland at an increasingly rapid pace, the country’s Environment Minister John Gormley said Wednesday, as he launched a major report on the issue.
Gormley, one of two Green Party ministers in Prime Minister Bertie Ahern’s coalition government, was unveiling a study from the country’s Environmental Protection Agency on key meteorological indicators of climate change.
The report says that Ireland’s average annual temperature has increased by 0.7 degrees centigrade between 1890 and 2004.
Six of the ten warmest years have occurred since 1990.
(29 August 2007)
